


Oranges

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dysfunctional Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:44:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Anton takes care of Viktor. He can't allow anyone else to do it.





	Oranges

“Boss. There’s a... An emergency.”

The way his boys say that, the way they are not quite meeting his eyes, scream to Anton, and he gets up from his desk.

“Lead on, kids.”

***

For all that Vik is taller than him, he’s light even when he can’t exactly coordinate the movement of his extremities. But his fucking coat and his fucking brace-armor add to his weight significantly, though Anton is glad for them, because at least he’s sure nobody would be able to knife Vik in passing.

They reach Anton’s den, the boys hovering a good distance away. The stairs are a problem for a moment, and Anton considers simply picking Vik up — but he doesn’t want to upset his stomach and head and to bring him into a position even more vulnerable than it is. So, slowly, painfully, they get up the stairs, reach Anton’s room, and Anton deposits the good colonel on the nest (no way he’s kicking any of the boys out of their beds to settle Vik somewhere else; Vik is his problem alone).

“Misha, be a dear and send a runner to Lieutenant Henry Watcher, they are the colonel’s secretary, they will most likely be at the Archives at this time. Tell them the colonel is indisposed but safe... That’s a good boy, thank you.”

He pulls the damned coat off Vik, using the half-faded knowledge of where to find the hidden clasps and how to undo them. Then hesitates with the brace-armor. “You shouldn’t drink, идиот,” he murmurs, brushing hair away from Vik’s eyes.

“Shouldn’t,” Vik says, either in an echo or in agreement, Anton can’t say. A hand sneaks round Anton’s waist, and Vik uses it as a leverage to pull himself close and press his face to Anton’s not exactly clean pants-clad thigh.

“By the Shadow.” Anton sighs, running his fingers over the side of Vik’s head, through his cut hair. Vik crops his hair himself, and it’s uneven, an afterthought compared to the closely shaven lower part of his head. If he didn’t shave it, it would get stuck in the brace-armor.

“I don’t want any drunken confessions. Just so you know,” Anton warns him.

“No drunken confessions.” For all that his words run into each other, Vik actually sounds more tired than drunk. He _smells_ of booze, but you’d never know, with such an expert liar, and Anton has half a mind to check by kissing him — but it wouldn’t be beneath Vik to actually wash his mouth with something that can be found at Curiosity’s, to be more convincing.

Anton wants to kiss him anyway.

He rubs the base of Vik’s skull, the dip that, if stricken, would kill him instantly and without pain, but day by day causes headaches. He startles when his fingers brush over the edge of the brace.

He hates the thing, but more than that, he hates himself for Vik needing it. After all, it’s his fault Vik needs it.

“Vik. I want to take off your armor, no way you’re sleeping in it, come on.”

The arm around his waist tightens momentarily, and in the near darkness one bright eye peers at him. “Tosha. Fuck me.”

Anton has to bite his lip and try to not shudder, from the words and the tone and how broken Vik looks.

Mother Abundance, what a bitch you are!

“Vik...”

“Fuck me. Hurt me. I want to...”

“Viktor!”

The bright eye closes, and Vik rolls over, away, curls up.

Anton knows nothing about him.

No, that’s not true.

He doesn’t know much of his past: everything he has is assumptions, extrapolations, guesswork. A man not without the past — but a man with his past swallowed up by Abundance.

Anton knows other things, however, important things: what Vik sounds when angry (stiff, clipped words), how he fights (dirty, effectively), how he moans, what he tastes like, the sharp smell of his sweat, his genuine smile (so rare, in the eyes and not in the mouth). Anton tries to think he knows the man even if he doesn’t know his story. Maybe that’s self-delusion on his part.

“Vitya. Let me take off your armor.”

No reply. Then Vik rolls onto his back, sits up. He doesn’t help Anton find the magnetic clasps, and throughout it all, peering sections off of him, Anton is aware of Vik’s attention. He puts the sections away — carefully, even though he wants to send them into the nearest trash compactor. Then he takes Vik’s right hand, undoes the touch fasteners, pulls the glove off. It’s a beautiful thing, a working thing: padded to protect Vik’s knuckles, and weighed down to make his punch deadlier.

Vik’s hand is very dry when Anton strokes it. Dandolo’s patient instructions come to his mind. Out on the plains, dry skin invites death, from infections or abrasions, and it is not this much of an issue here under the dome — but, regardless.

Anton lowers Vik’s bared right hand on the bedding, his heart like marching of troops in his chest, takes the other glove off quickly. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” It’s a stupid instruction: where would Vik go? But, drunken, broken or not, he might.

Anton scrambles off the nest and to a chest kicked into the corner, rummages in it by touch, his fingers brushing a myriad of things (a carved mole bone handle of a knife, a bit of ostrich skin, a half-forgotten packet of candied oranges, their crescent shapes making him pause for just a moment), until he finds a small jar, and pulls it out.

“What’s it?”

He settles on the nest, opens the jar. The sweet and energizing scent of oranges underlined by camellia flows out. “Mole grease.”

A chuckle in the dark. “Thought you said no...”

Anton rolls his eyes, reaches to the side of the nest, finds a lumotube discarded there and shakes it, and it gives off its feeble orange light. He doesn’t need it, but Vik doesn’t like darkness. “It’s not for _that_ , осел.” Vik is still wearing pants, but Anton doesn’t want to make him feel even more vulnerable by suggesting to take them off. Other than that, there is a plain turtleneck, and nothing else. Vik looks... thin, without the armor and the imposing coat.

Anton presses on his chest lightly. “Lie back, shut up and let me work.”

“Are you sure—”

“I am _not_ fucking you while you are drunk, Vitya.” He looks into Vik’s eyes. They are wet, and on anyone else they’d be called pretty. They’d _be_ pretty, they are made to light up with laughter. But Vik is not that kind of man, and he has a way of staring down.

But Anton has years of experience with such staring downs.

He knows he has thrust upon Vik a dilemma with no way out. If Vik wants a fucking, he’d have to admit — and _prove_ — that he’s not drunk — but the sober Vik is Colonel Viktor Watcher and shouldn’t be here. If he concedes and admits he is drunk, as Anton suspects he really is, then he’s not getting anything but what Anton is planning for him: the jar of precious perfumed oil and hours of uninterrupted rest.

It’s a game Vik cannot win, and he would hate Anton for this — but Anton would gladly accept that over whatever punishment Vik has conducted for himself.

There is nobody on Mars who hates Viktor Watcher more than Viktor Watcher himself.

Vik lies down.

Maybe he _is_ drunk.

Anton scoops some of the fragrant fat, lets it warm up, then takes one of Vik’s hands, and, holding it in his palm, starts spreading the grease over Vik’s skin. It dissolves into thin oil that makes his touch glide over Vik’s palm, and Anton applies a little pressure. First, he rubs into the base of Vik’s palm, the subtle roundness of it feeling vulnerable. Vik’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t take his hand away, and Anton thinks it a good sign. He moves the pad of his thumb into the center of Vik’s palm, gentle to not press too hard, rubs circles, unhurried. There are prominent ridges, grooves, not only the natural kind, but subtle depressions of scars.

He moves to the bases of fingers next, every hillock stroked and rubbed. Then, he holds Vik’s thumb and runs it between his own thumb and forefinger several times. Every knuckle, every ridge. He repeats the same with each finger, pulling slightly, feeling the give and resistance of sinews, bones. Then turns Vik’s hand to rub the back. Bones shifting under slight pressure. A burn mark here, just where the forefinger connects with the palm. A mole that, he knows but can’t exactly see in the feeble light, is near the edge of the palm. A faint scar across the back. He rubs the oil over the prominent bone of the wrist, circles the wrist, feeling faded, but still noticeable long scars running up the underside of the forearm, disappearing into the sleeve of the turtleneck.

He lowers the well-worked hand on the coverlet carefully, takes the other. He has to shift slightly and reach across Vik’s body for it.

Vik’s breathing is faster than usual, stuttering on the inhale, as though he’s suffocating a little.

Anton works on his other hand just as diligently as before.

“Tosha, please...”

It’s only in this darkness accentuated by the orange light that Vik’s pleading is possible, and it takes all of Anton’s will to say: “No.”

“ _Please_...”

“ _No_.”

The sensual glide of skin over skin — and the _scent_... Anton realizes he has played himself the moment he’s brought this jar out and with it, the memories of care, affection that, years ago, he traded for this life he’s leading. He doesn’t regret the deal... Most of the time.

It’s not that he’s unaffected himself. He wets his lips.

He finishes with Vik’s other hand, but just when he moves to lower it, Vik’s fingers clamp on his. It’s not exactly the firmest of holds, with both of them oiled, but with his senses heightened by whatever is happening between them, he feels how their bones shift, against each other. Together. He swallows. The scent of oranges is rich in the air.

“Tosha.”

He can barely recognize Vik’s voice, subdued, somehow more sincere, even though he’s not sure Vik can even be sincere with anyone. It’s just the drink, or the darkness, or the scent of oranges, even sweeter now.

He closes the jar with his free hand, puts it away. Vik pulls him close, and Anton goes down. He’s tired. The room is tilting slightly, as though he is the one who is drunk. He tucks his face against Vik’s shoulder. It is rather bony. The hand Vik doesn’t let go of is lying on Vik’s chest, Vik’s ribs shifting with every breath against Anton’s forearm.

Vik smells of cheap soap — no wonder his skin is so dry. There is a faint reek of metal and oil from his armor-brace, but that, together with the soap, cannot fight against oranges.

Anton pushes the lumotube away, it’s already fading.

He feels a kiss on the top of his head; he closes his eyes.

Come morning, they might fuck. A fight with both of them winners, and both of them losers. Then, they might fight for real, hurtling abuse at each other.

The routine is familiar, and dreadful in its familiarity.

Kindness is cruelty, and they are not made for kindness.

But for now, Vik is here, breathing with him in the darkness.


End file.
